In a typical year the brave men and women of the Coast Guard Atlantic area command -- which comprises the Atlantic ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean -- will rescue 2,600 mariners, respond to 10,000 oil and chemical spills, rescue thousands of stranded marine mammals, stop the flow of 41,000 metric tons of illegal drugs, and board over 10,000 fishing vessels enforcing fishery regulations.

This is a critical time for the Coast Guard: the simple truth is that we haven't done nearly enough to empower the Coast Guard to keep faith with an ever-intensifying mission. The number of jobs created by a New Economy driven by technology has severely affected Coast Guard recruiting and today the Coast Guard faces a deficit of nearly 1,000 uniform personnel. Fuel and maintenance costs along with escalating recruiting costs to address the personnel shortfall conspire to undermine the Coast Guard mission. We continue to witness reduction in the number of days at sea and flight hours for critical missions including environmental protection, fisheries enforcement, and drug trafficking.

The Coast Guard finds itself increasingly limited even at a time when its responsibilities are expanding: today there are more commercial and recreational vessels in our waters today than ever before in our nation's history; international trade has expanded greatly, and with it maritime traffic has increased in our nation's ports and harbors; tighter border patrols have forced drug traffickers to use the thousands of miles of our county's coastlines as the means to introduce illegal drugs into our country. Just when our country needs the Coast Guard the most, slow-moving budgetary politics on Capitol Hill are leaving its critical needs underfunded.

To correct the recruiting shortfall that America's armed forces have experienced, Congress last year passed the National Defense Authorization Act that provided men and women in uniform with increased housing allowances, healthcare benefits and targeted pay increases for mid-level enlisted personnel. These steps should be taken to increase retention of Coast Guard personnel -- but not a single cost of these programs were factored into the Coast Guard budget. A necessary $36 million for recruitment and retention this year alone is missing from the Coast Guard's budgetary equation.

The Coast Guard needs an additional $28 million added to their fuel accounts this year because a federal budget drafted two years before passing Congress failed to anticipate sharp increases in fuel costs that have plagued New England and the nation the last two years.

The Coast Guard has asked for additional investments to replenish their aircraft spare parts accounts. Recently, the Coast Guard has literally been unable to respond to emergency situations because they literally did not have a search and rescue C-130 aircraft that could respond to a vessel in distress far from shore. This is unacceptable – and could rapidly be corrected with a $27 million for additional spare parts for Coast Guard aircraft.

These absolutely critical needs could be met if only Congress would focus on the real needs of a nation. Last year, Congress wasted two billion dollars on pork barrel spending in its final budget; for one twentieth of that amount -- $100 million – we could meet these basic needs of our nation's Coast Guard. That is precisely the goal a number of us in the United States Senate -- including Senator Kennedy (D-MA), Sen. Snowe (R-ME), and Sen. Stevens (R-AK) -- are pushing to achieve this year. At a time of budget surpluses in Washington, with talk of trillion dollar tax cuts consuming the political dialogue, it's long past due that common sense prevailed and we met our most basic obligation: to protect the safety of our citizens. As we ask the Coast Guard to do more and more each day – with lives on the line on Cape Cod and up and down our nation's coastline – we can not afford to have political solutions lag so many miles behind our policy needs. We need to make sure the brave men and women of the Coast Guard can keep faith with their duty – and Congress can do that first and foremost by meeting our basic duty to those who serve us so well.